Tag Archives: dwarves

Any year is a good year to be a dwarf if you’re under five feet tall and often get labeled as a ‘person of short stature’. But 2012 is the year where we get to celebrate the Year Of The Dwarves. Forget dragons – dwarves are the thing that will save you from danger. Or boredom. Or box office ruins. Especially if you’re a filmmaker with a high-profile project coming out this year.

This year we get four major live feature productions – three on the big screens and one on television – where diminutive, smaller-than-the-rest-of-the-poulation men with fierce fighting prowess, wisdom of the ages and/or excellent comedic timing steal the show from their normal-sized counterparts. There’s going to dwarves for all seasons if you care to turn your eyes into what Hollywood has to offer us in cinema and TV. And there is a rock solid guarantee that you will not be disappointed with this new breed of action heroes.

Earlier this year, in one incarnation of Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale of Snow White called Mirror Mirror (directed by Tarsem Singh) ‘the little people’ had the honor of outwitting a handsome and statuesque heartthrob with long legs not once, but twice, before helping him to get the girl. Sometime later, in a land called Westeros, a dwarf slapped a bratty young king and put him in his place while politicking around the king’s court while bedding the beautiful ladies. This summer, eight rebellious dwarves fought in a revolution with yet another Snow White in the Kirsten Stewart-starring Snow White And The Huntsman. And at the end of this year when J.R.R. Tolkien’s first masterpiece comes to live in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, there won’t just be one pint-sized action hero with big feet adventuring in Middle Earth. This action hero gets 13 Dwarf companions. THIRTEEN!

And will you look at the people who are playing these dwarves: Martin Klebba. Ian McShane. Toby Jones. Ray Winstone. Nick Frost. Richard Armitage. And the Biggie: Peter Dinklage.

Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Peter Dinklage, mind you. This is your cue to affix the title Lord Honorable or add The Grand Duke Of Awesome in front of his name. Also, it wouldn’t be remiss to bow and curtsy before him.

There is so much talent from anyone playing dwarf characters on screen that it’s virtually impossible for us to not acknowledge them as The Awesomest People Ever this year. Tyrion Lannister has always been everyone’s favorite Game Of Thrones character (including Charles Dance’s, who plays Tyrion’s dad Tywin). The seven dwarves had the funniest lines and scenes in Mirror Mirror. The eight dwarves, who were actually normal-sized actors rendered by special effects to transform into short Narnia-esque creatures saved Huntsman from utter pointlessness. With this track record, plus their own reputable fame from the already-legendary book, Martin Freeman’s Bilbo and his merry band of dwarves can only amaze us further in The Hobbit. What else is there to say?

A toast, then, to celebrate the best characters in the fantasy genre this year. Not dragons, not sorcerers, not even kick-ass princes with swords as long as their limbs… but dwarves. Short, rowdy and carefree people who love a good time, save you from evil rulers and will fight with you and for you to the end. Here’s to the dwarves!